sleepy people
by Gilly.Flowers
Summary: Days went by, with the shop springing back into action with only the baker at command the next, and the next. Eleanor walked as if clouds were at her feet, rising her two inches from the firm ground. The transcendence she had felt ceased.


**A.N. Alternate landscape, anyone? - Gillies ( _enjoy_ )**

* * *

That overtly generous window of time fell shut with an _unusual_ softness. Business hours were at an end. The very last customer had slipped off into the swelling shadows, already forgotten by the three occupants of 186 Fleet Street.

Yawns filtered through her fingers held close to her mouth; she felt her breath become synced to the universe as she stood half asleep on the patio. That transcendence that has more and more often accompanied the end of her work day lifted her feet until she was practically floating on clouds. She was stilled, simply basking. Though she hid her smile with exhaustion.

Eleanor did all that she could muster to bring in the blue red closure of evening in pleasure, having wrapped her arms around herself to huddle some warmth close to her breast; she thought of summoning estranged energy to coax it perhaps in her home, maybe even while seated… She didn't move.

The small shadow named Tobias passed by, pulling her from her stupor even without words. The small child was making his rounds through the maze of tables, collecting dishes and utensils, and the odd cluster of coins.

Mrs. Lovett mimicked him. She swept crumbs from a plate with no regard to the rats that would ponder after the superior shelter that was her home as they gobbled down delicious morsels of pastry.

Their silence prevailed.

Toby had been adopted after Sweeney had returned, by now a handful of months, and he understood the ins and outs of their routine. He unapologetically benefitted from the observation skills he'd learned from the strict matron of the work house; that wicked spinster used to chant, practise _adaptability_ or you will perish.

When the last of the London populace buggered off to their long-awaited homes, or sometimes to the margins of society from whence he himself had risen, Toby understood in his very nature that it was a quiet time. He smiled at his mum, and held open the shop door for her despite his laden arms.

He found her to be the epitome of life, with her will for survival, and her gentle edges; little did he know that had he seen her even two days before Mr. Todd's return, the sourly barber whom lurked above them, he would have hated her for she had given up _entirely_.

Today, he loved her.

They washed, swept, _purified_ , stored, smothered, threw away, brushed, _smoothened_ , rinsed, straightened, dusted, removed, tousled, capped, _pressed_. Elle finally gifted the singular toffee she had hidden deep inside her skirt pocket. She had been saving it for him.

Then, the house was fresh and crouching in wait to spring back to life the day after tomorrow. The sky had melded with the inky blackness of London's homes and buildings. There was for the time no distinction between the _stars_ and where their neighbours _slept_ , sleeping within a smaller world of blankets and the Heart's happy warmth.

Or at least not one discernible by the six human eyes that peered from within our pie shop.

"Would you fancy some gin?" In the front of the shop, they reconvened like magnets. "I think I shouldn't encourage your vices but I know how 'ard it is to sleep peacefully." She confided, and watched powerlessly as his eyes swam with emotion. "Sometimes."

His mouth was still sweet from the candy she had given him earlier when he mumbled, lulled with enervation,

"I wouldn't need it if I slept with you tonight."

She was surprised. Her eyebrows rose delicately in the vanishing light. He kicked himself. Of course, she would refuse, and he'd be thrown out-of-doors onto his arse in no time, the hard cobble stones the only loved one he'll ever share his nightmares with. He had forgotten how _untrustworthy_ he really was, being a child from the work house, raised by poverty. He might dirty her fine cotton sheets with the soot that clung to him like moisture to lakes. He might slit her throat in the middle of the night and take all her savings; he knew where she placed it; top drawer, within the flaking bureau. He might

"Is that what you'd like? Come along then," She didn't wait for his answer; waiting for the child to figure out how to execute his thoughts into concise words? Completely redundant. How he felt…. It would have been obvious to even Sweeney, whose eyes saw only _ghosts_ and spirits of vengeance. Not people.

Tobias had been inside her bedroom only once before, but that had been during the day when all the small and large things he was now bumping into were clear and easy to avoid. His hands had carefully touched the knobs of the mirror, in awe. His hands grasped the mirror, with the desperation of a blind man in a groundless sea of ink. It had also been another Saturday, with another day of freedom looming just unreachably beyond the horizon for the two of them. Did he sleep with her then? He hadn't dared to ask, a week into his unsecure residence in the homely apartment. Had he wanted to? Completely redundant to ask.

Eleanor, looking aged against the relief and tension the flame of a candle casted onto the rise of her cheeks and valleys of her nose and lips, fixed the tattered curtains. There was a single window in the room, but it drew in the morning's ruthless light as if the light were a waterfall, and the glass was its cascading precipice. She hated being awoken by a sunrise that came before she needed it too. The candle's heavy base touched, scrapped the surface it was placed on.

"Lay down, love,"

Now she was sieving her fingers through the hanging shafts of darkness inside the closet, he presumed she was looking for her night clothes. He did as she said, then faced the opposite wall to provide her some semblance of privacy. His head touched the pillow after a brief exhalation, the distrust melting from his body when he was filled with a stranger smell than anything he's ever known. His nose tingled; he heard dense fabric hit the floor. The smell was an intimate scent of his mum. It gave him strange feelings in a hand basket.

"The last person to sleep in this room 'sides me was Ol' Albert. He used to boil in the early hours of the morning; wake me up with his skin 'ot to the touch."

Toby pressed his face deeper into the pillow, searching for the scent of Albert, the memory of his sweaty presence. But there was only her.

"Wot are you doing?" The mattress relented, pulling him until he slid in to the dell she and the wonky springs made. "Are you crying?" She was whispering.

"No," Gentle arms wrapped him in a hug, and he stared with eyes wide into the tar ceiling. The miniscule, fleecy hairs of her limbs tickled his sensitive nerve-endings. He felt for the first time a surrounding of protection, a warmth that reached into him so far it nearly hurt. The source of his pillow's fragrance embodied itself in a creature he never wanted to leave him or die.

Nothing should ever harm her, he vowed. He was confident his malicious nightmares were cowering, monsters with their tails tucked tightly against their genitals were hobbling away from this singular mattress, this world of warmth, this protector. Nothing could harm him.

"Did you know your mother?"

It felt like three hours had gone by when she whispered the question.

Why did she want to know? He understood with every fibre that she had been given to him by angels, or fate. Toby's hand, which had rested on her back, fisted the clothe. "Yes. When I was very lit'le, I r'member er talking to me but I've since forgotten the words. She didn't want to leave me at the work 'ouse, though. I know she didn't."

"I know," She repeated, in earnest. Her own hand smoothened the tousled locks of hair on the back of his neck. "Was she very beautiful?"

Toby shook his head no. "Not like you, mum," That last word, though spoken many times before, tripped on itself.

Thunder claps broke their condensed universe, shattering the bubble; it was the barber, trudging from on room to the next above their heads. As the barber moved along, his footsteps seemed to decrescendo until it was almost as if the soft patting of unshod feet was what had them flinching out of their skins moments earlier.

Toby swore dust fell into his eyes, and he blinked excessively against tears.

"I dream about 'er sometimes. She isn't blurry in my dreams like she is during the day; unless she is upset, or angry at me, then it's like I need a pair of glasses because I'm nearly all of a sudden blind."

Eleanor wondered after Toby's age once more, seeing possible birth years flit by in the darkness. She's been thinking about this for a while.

She wondered how different he would be if she had brought him into the world herself. She pictured him as a screaming, bloody little creature of warmth, an embodiment of her wishes and humanity. He squirmed in her arms, and she knew through a strengthening instinct that he was crying.

Eleanor tried her damnedest to crush him in her embrace. They clung like dirt to poverty. But she didn't say the words she believed in her heart of hearts. She held it on her tongue, held him in her arms. She thought it, inscribed it to her soul, but said nothing.

Sweeney and Eleanor had that quality in common.

The light was being dodgy. It crept into the room, maneuvering slyly from below and around the curtain Ele had adjusted hours beforehand. The cunning bastard pried apart Toby's eyelids, separated their crusted folds of skin like one would gleefully separate two sides of a crème-filled cookie. Mrs. Lovett remained ever so docile beside him, and he took great pains not to arouse her. He looked across the pillows at her flattened mess of red curls; the silky ringlets and their owner brought out genuity, and so early in the day.

His head was dull from the thick, pelting tears he'd relinquished during the night, before he'd succumbed to a blank slumber. His stomach was empty and made so known.

Toby's fists rubbed the crude film from his eyes as he sat up in bed. His pajamas were twisted. They caught on his toes when he tried to get out of bed, and, helpless, he plummeted from the edge of the mattress to the wooden floor. _Oof_.

For a second longer he waited with baited breath, mouth and cheek to the grime of the ground.

"Are you okay?" Came the dreaded, though languidly sleepy query. "Did you hurt yourself?"

"No, I'll be okay," He mumbled, unsure of himself as he righted, and stood. Once on his feet he saw that she hadn't moved an inch. Her back fell with a deep exhalation. She was sleeping once again. Toby silently excused himself from the room. He passed by her layers of dress puddled there beside the vanity.

Sweeney met the boy's eye as soon as he emerged from the hall. The barber reclined on the settee, with his razor open on his thigh, clutched in his hand. Toby haltingly went around him.

The kitchen served him well. There was a potato pie left over from yesterday that he gobbled down with a mug of milk.

He could see from his spot before the windows that London had come back to life as well, when the cools of night were no longer at play. Inside, the urge to run free in the streets filled him with prowess, while a severe reluctance iced the soup in his bowels. He watched for a while longer.

* * *

"'ave you seen Toby?" Mrs. Lovett appeared in the parlor doorway, with a fine coating of flour masquerading as expensive _pomp_ powder on her cheeks. She looked foolish, thought Sweeney.

The day and hours had gone on as usual, with only one exception the size and shape of a malnourished adolescent boy with brown hair and murky eyes. That ghost in the corner, if you will, tormented Eleanor to the point of near combustion.

"Mr. T?"

"He must be playing hooky with his friends… Or vandalizing the neighbourhood no doubt… Let it off, Mrs. Lovett."

He thought he had been sufficiently nasty, if the pink beneath her powder was any indication. However, despite all, she still collapsed into the chair beside him. Since the a.m. he had moved from the settee to the fire place, and from the fire place to the armchair. It was green, perhaps moldy, and worst of all liked to swallow victims whole, the ghastly thing.

And, in Lovett fashion, disregarding the minimal – nay, _non-existent_ space for her, she sat there with him.

Once he finished fuming, Sweeney felt the heated panic burning beneath her uncomfortably close skin.

"Wouldn't he tell me before he left, I'm wondering? I've never felt such an intense desire" Sweeney balked, "to know where some little one was!"

"He's from the spike, Mrs. Lovett, he'll be fine." Instead of questioning Sweeney's bitey consolations, instead of jumping up in a huff and stomping off, she stuck her fingernail between her teeth and sunk, if possible, deeper into his side.

" _Watch_ , by nightfall he will be scratching at your doors once again." _And then maybe you'll have another night with your human teddy bear._

The barber took her hand and removed it from her mouth.

Days went by, with the shop springing back into action with only the baker at command the next, and the next. Eleanor walked as if _clouds_ were at her feet, rising her two inches from the firm ground; she did all she could muster.

Tobias never returned again.


End file.
